


The pantry and subsequent events

by heme



Series: Chemistry student Deidara [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crack, Deidara's eyeliner, M/M, Sasori's face cream, much earl grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25052056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heme/pseuds/heme
Summary: Deidara met Itachi at a student-run café first thing in the morning. Can Deidara's ruined day become better?
Relationships: Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Series: Chemistry student Deidara [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813744
Kudos: 9





	The pantry and subsequent events

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I decided to expand 'The tale of a cup of coffee' into a series. The stories are not in chronological order.
> 
> Same warning; technical talks befitting a chem undergrad fresh 'un.
> 
> Enjoy, but most likely not.

The best way to soothe a night of insomnia is no doubt breakfast at the pantry.

“… that would be four – fifty.” The student cashier said with a cheesy grin, as Deidara fumbled through his pocket to find the relevant change. He was too preoccupied with his current work that he did not notice a familiar slender long-haired raven, wearing his trademark red contacts.

Not until Deidara has found himself a seat, that is. The blond’s frenemy approached him, silently gesturing that he shall occupy the seat right across the chemistry student since all the others were taken.

Deidara gritted his teeth, “Uchiha.”

“Iwa.” Itachi spared Deidara no eye contact.

“And you finally decided to grace the pantry with your patronage after, was it four days of a cold spell, un?” Due to the blond’s constant provocations, the stress lines on Itachi’s face lengthened in response.

Though his inner activities were exposed by elongating stress lines, but considering the general unweighted average of his looks, Itachi was not disturbed at the slightest (or rather – negligibly disturbed) at his neighbour’s uncontrolled periodic outburst. He merely continued on using his knife to slice the piece of toast into dainty little pieces, while replying smoothly, “The word grace implies a strong positive,” the maths major with an everlasting love for semantics applied his natural knack upon the conversation, “and it is common knowledge that the pantry, being a student – run facility, is always bankrupt. No amount of patronage can be considered enough of a strong positive to pull it back from bankruptcy, since it is nothing else than a management issue. Thus, I never graced the pantry in any sense.” With his analysis finished, the raven gently placed a sugar cube into his cup of earl grey. He picked up the faux – silverware teaspoon on his saucer, then stirred the liquid without voicing any collisions between spoon and ceramic.

The subject of his speech of humiliation took a deep breath, “You finally – ” Deidara gnashed his molars together as a sign of evident discomfort, killing intent leaking into the status descriptor, “ – _arrived_ at the pantry.” Very befitting his title: Deidara of the Explosions, especially when provoked, he breathes an aura analogous to an explosion. To exert such immense control over said aura necessitates considerable strength, and it was obvious the action took its toll on the party of action. Exhaust and anger were evident in Deidara’s expressive eyes.

Itachi nodded in complete apathy, proceeding to put the porcelain cup onto the saucer with an air of nothing less than posh, “Indeed. I had to distance myself because of some unexpected troubles.”

“Well, the mighty Uchiha actually do have troubles. What a pleasant surprise, un.”

“Humans always encounter troubles. Unlike you, Iwa, who cannot even be considered human from all your talks about explosions.”

“I’ll kill you someday, un.”

“I do look forward to it.” Itachi placed a perfect square of toast into his mouth, and after consuming the piece, decided to continue on the topic, “Anyways, before you _kindly_ interrupted me with your unrelated tangent, as I was saying, I had a few troubles awaiting. One of Sasuke’s fangirls decided to stalk me inside the college grounds.”

“They _what_?” Deidara nearly choked on his hot chocolate, and he spluttered between coughs, not forgetting to add his speech impediment as a finale, “Sasuke’s fangirls, un? What has that got to do with you?” Sure, Itachi was certainly repulsive and reprehensible in some sense to Deidara, but it was evident that he did nothing to deserve this treatment. The Uchiha heir’s younger brother with an iconic duck arse as his hairstyle and ridiculous emo attitude was famed throughout their circle of acquaintances because of his ability to attract creepy female stalkers and paedophiles, however to encounter one that would actively seek out the victim’s relatives is nothing short of a brand-new occurrence, something deserving a restraint order.

Itachi glanced over his shoulders, checking for hints of details indicating the type of women in question, and after finding none, he then deemed it safe to continue, “Shisui got the news that one of them are coming for me to take revenge of my ‘inability to take care of Sasuke’,” using two neighbouring fingers per hand to make air quotes which suggests extra emphasis laced with blatant sarcasm, “and I had to fake for those few days that I’m not studying here, or anywhere in this country. He generously provided me with the information that the fangirl will be here from last Thursday to last Saturday, hence I bought a train ticket departing on last Wednesday evening to Belgium, with the return on last Sunday. As a result, I took two days of sick leave and four less breakfasts at the pantry.” Spoken as a true definite frequent costumer of the pantry.

Though the dining environment and food quality at the pantry are rather appreciable, and on that account entirely deserving of endless clientele, consecutive utilisation of this certain service can haemorrhage one’s savings if they are not from wealthy families that does not limit their monthly spending. It was therefore a surprise to encounter students like Itachi, who makes it a habit to allocate a constant daily amount of their expenditure to said facility. Despite it being the case where Deidara has been classmates with Itachi since the beginning of high school, if the blond directed his mind to comprehend exactly how well – off the weasel is, the results are still to a certain extent terrifying.

“And you actually have a house in Belgium to live in, un.”

“A couple dozen kilometres near Antwerp. My family owns a factory plant there.”

“ _Excuseer me_ , or was it _parlay – wus_ , un?” Deidara smirked with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Itachi spent several years in France during his primary school years, and he retained a maddening tendency from this upbringing to revert into impeccable French. Butcher up French pronunciation in front of Itachi, you enter alive and come out dead, since it presses the exact buttons to make the expressionless furious. The recalcitrant freshman proceeded without regarding Itachi’s mental well – being, “No wonder you have breakfast five days a week at the pantry.” He did not pay any attention to the fact that he was about to sound ridiculously like Kakuzu, but only his devilish grin overwhelmed all senses, “Spending money on a real – estate of not much use on some obsolete Flemish pasture is a huge deal, un.”

Itachi was about to correct Deidara’s appalling French, except Deidara interrupted the plan with yet another attack supplemented by a flashy hundred – eighty degrees turn before Itachi has managed to even vibrate his vocal cords, “ _Parlay – wus_ , I have a lab with Gari to go to. See ya!” Leaving the stoic Uchiha to fume on his own. The raven can attempt nothing aside from letting out an extended sigh, while massaging his stress lines. Rumour says that Sasori has an entire collection of face and body products, including an assortment of wrinkle serums. Perhaps he could borrow a tube of wrinkle serum from Sasori as payback to Deidara in making his stress lines extra evident.

The successful event in triggering the Uchiha pulled Deidara’s mood into a high plateau. He carried his belongings with springs in his steps towards the natural sciences area, arriving at the room five minutes before the booked period. Spending time with Sasori has corrected what used to be his attitude of often being late. Gari was already there, with his own copy of practical instructions in hand, waiting for Deidara to do the same.

The two had an uncomfortable minute of silence until Gari decided to break it.

“So… Dei,” Gari leaned against the wall, centre of mass on his bent left leg, “you decide to stay here over the summer holidays?”

Deidara was taken aback for a moment at the sudden irrelevant statement, he brushed his fringe aside in what appears to be tickling his nose, “Yeah. Couple of reasons.” The reply was ended with a loud scoff.

“Hmm, I wonder if that has to do with your boyfriend?” A teasing smile did Gari do. Deidara was about to instantaneously splutter and deny that Sasori is not his boyfriend, but decided that it would not reflect well on his demeanour.  
  
“Of course!” The long – haired student pulled his mouth into a grin that could split his face in half, and he smirked while approaching hauntingly close to Gari’s face, “ _Danna_ will feel so _lonely_ without me, un?” Under Deidara's articulation, simple words can absolutely become lewd.

Now it was Gari’s turn to splutter, “What? I never mentioned Sasori in this, and Sasori’s not your boyfriend, amirite?”

Deidara only shrugged his shoulders in what was unclear to be denial or acceptance. In the nick of time, a technician stepped out from the laboratory to break their awkward moment. She coughed at the duo, obviously having heard the previous conversation, as a distraction and a smokescreen from the obscene awkwardness.

“Gari, yeah?” Deidara wafted over the uncomfortable – to – Gari encounter like nothing, “Have you gone over the instructions?” His poor lab partner nodded in response. It was a lengthy series of introductions to vacuum line techniques which from visual estimation, will roughly take two hours to complete the corresponding data collection, and an additional one and a half hours in the dormitory to fill in the questions.

Deidara has already started to fit the Pirani gauge on top of the vacuum pump in order to measure the ultimate vacuum of the pump. He dares not risk damaging the Pirani gauge unless he was ready to take the technician’s wrath head on, thus he signalled Gari to prepare for relieving vacuums in the setup once the relevant data has been jotted down. The two were ready after two minutes, and the pump was turned off with the gauge removed immediately afterwards.

The blond inserted the straight tube on the inlet of the pump in order to raise all subsequent fittings. Assembling components right on the top of the pump will create a crowded mess, which indicates subpar experimental methods. Deidara raised a small pressurised gas cylinder so that it was carried vertically, with Gari securing its position, such that its weight does not bend any fitting. After fixing O – rings with clamps between smooth metal surfaces, the clamps were tightened enough to secure. Signs of overtightening were checked by the sculptor, relaxing joints when required.

Following turning on the vacuum pump, the air admittance valve was twisted closed. Connecting taps amongst the system were opened, and when the reading on the Pirani gauge has stabilised, the figure was noted. As stated on the practical instructions, the instructor signalled the technician to deliberately leak a component, resulting in a much higher reading than the ultimate vacuum.

“Dei?” Deidara turned his head to face Gari, all his long hair already tied up in a bun to avoid potential ghastly hair incidents.

“Yeah?”

“You squirt the acetone. The wash bottle’s over there.” Gari pointed a finger towards the direction of the bottle, on which scrawled is the word in black stating ‘acetone’.

“Why?”

“You sculpt, so you don’t have shaky hands. We don’t need to squirt much of the solvent onto the ring joints and welds.” The sculptor nodded in response. Wash bottle in his dominant hand, he gently sprayed the mechanical weaknesses from bottom to top with the solvent, while eyeing the Pirani gauge. The reading of the gauge experienced a sudden increase when the liquid touched the leak. Taps were closed and the vacuum dissuaded, the system was ready to be dismantled and replaced with a vacuum – tight alternative.

All remaining sections of the practical proceeded without remarkable events, as any successfully conducted freshman practical should. Else, it would be declared a safety failure. Chemists in the olden days were not known to live long lives, safety was unfortunately not a major concern back then. Though the procedure of analysis by taste was not widely practised even a few centuries ago, ones who did died premature as martyrs, providing alarm bells to their adorable seniors.

The final section of measuring the vapour pressure of methanol sparked a comment from Deidara.

“Reminded me of Schlenk line operations, un.”

“Hm.”

“You sound like the Uchiha, un.”

“…” There was an initial pause.  
“Do you seriously want to have a battle between the ‘un’ and the ‘hm’?” Gari raised both his brows.

“No, yeah.”

From there onwards was deliberate confused silence, even after the clearing up.

Judging from the hollering of students and the position of shadows, it was the usual lunchtime. Sasori is a lazy impatient bastard with plenty of money to spare, consequently he can always be found in the college dining hall at lunchtime right on the clock. With a brazen spring in his walk, he started a brisk stroll back to the college dining hall to meet the redhead in fifteen minutes.

Sasori sat in his usual spot, his back facing the paned window which opens to the quad. He has no sweet tooth, and is somewhat fanatic about his health condition because of how Deidara kindly phrased it, ‘you and your eternity bullshit’, hence having salads with either water, milk, or unsweetened black coffee in every meal. By the time Deidara smugly arrived, hair already styled in his trademark half – ponytail from the tight bun, Sasori was finishing up the last lettuce leaves in his plate.

The engineering student swallowed his oral contents, eyes only focused on his reading material, “You’re late.”

Deidara half – closed his eyes while supporting his head sideways on his elbow, “Am I, un?”

Sasori noticed immediately that there was something off about Deidara’s behaviour. He holds an immense dislike for uncertainty, so he asked to pinpoint, “Brat, you’re acting weird. That last time when you asked me to solve that differential equation, you have the same body language as then. Are you trying to take advantage of me again?” The redhead cocked a brow, slightly widening his glazed eyes at the feigned innocence.

“Well, you see, Danna,” Deidara grinned, “now that you’ve reminded me, un, I’m having another question that I can ask.” Sasori nearly groaned, yet he did not. He simply placed a bookmark into the textbook situated on the left side of his plate, and closed the cover.

The redhead raised his head from its original position to stare at Deidara, “Well, brat, then take it out and stop wasting my time.”

Deidara scratched his forehead with a smirk, “My, my, you’re mistaken, un. It’s not on a piece of paper. Let me search through my memory about what that was.” He then stuttered between ‘uh’s and ‘ah’s, deliberately dragging out his sentence to play on Sasori’s patience, only to find Sasori on his reading material again after the drama. The blond frowned, “Danna?”

Sasori answered with the silent treatment. He flipped over a page in the book, motioning wordless that he totally does not give a flying rat’s arse. But that could not delude Deidara, he understands in its entirety that deep down, Sasori is a possessive fucker who cannot stand his little brat suffering over menial causes other than the redhead’s own.

Five minutes later, Sasori finally deemed it fit to answer, “Yes, brat?”

“Ah, finally, un!” Deidara rolled his eyes, ponytail flicking to the anterior side, “why does acetone has a higher thermal conductivity than air?” This question was deliberately picked to suit a chemist, and to trap an engineer.

Sasori sipped on his sparkling water, “Because acetone molecules have more degrees of freedom than the mostly diatomic air molecules.” Deidara then realised his plan completely backfired on himself, and he was about to brace for the result of his pride and dignity slipping away into the abyss. The sculptor groaned as his ego was mercilessly crushed by cold-blooded awareness, and the puppeteer continued while taking a mouthful of fluid, eyes never off the mathematical derivations on the exposed pages, “Equipartition theorem, doubt you would recognise it even if it trimmed your hair.” Deidara puffed his chest out, lips curled in disagreement, though not interrupting Sasori’s monologue, “I’ll rephrase it into simple words that you can comprehend. A diatomic molecule has three translations, two rotations, and one vibration. And a nonlinear polyatomic molecule has a total of 3N degrees of freedom, every one of which can store and carry an amount of energy of order kT. ‘Kay is the Boltzmann constant. End of story.”

Deidara gaped, “Danna, but how, un?”

“How what?” Sasori smirked.

“How did you know this? It was supposed to trick you, un.”

The redhead only blinked to marvel at Deidara’s apparent ignorance, “There exists a course called ‘engineering thermodynamics’, stupid brat. And, unlike last time, you did not repay me with a relevant gift while you asked for a favour. Do not keep me waiting while you collect said item.”

Deidara pondered for a brief moment to draft up a plan of retribution, when the work was done, his surprised face converted into the familiar lopsided smirk, “Just because you haven’t seen the gift yet doesn’t mean that I’m not giving it to you, un. It’ll be ready before you can even notice.”

Sasori paid no attention to the latter detail, brushing it off as something unimportant, “By the way, Itachi asked me earlier to borrow my anti – wrinkle cream.”

The chemistry student gaped again, blue eyes fully opened, “He what? Did you gave it to him, un?”

“Of course.” Sasori drawled.

“But why, Danna? The Uchiha is clearly up for no good.” Sasori could in effect hear Deidara’s pout of disappointment.

“Because unlike you who supposedly takes pleasure in my suffering, I do relish in seeing you suffer. No supposedly.” Sasori amusely smirked.

“So that’s why, un.” Deidara threw an innocent demonic smile up his features, and decided it was the perfect time to put his plan into action, standing straight up. With the posture of a predator about to pounce on its prey, he slowly pranced to the redhead, while Sasori eyed Deidara with unabashed suspicion. It was vehemently clear to Sasori that Deidara has zero respect for boundaries, but the engineering student, not in a lifetime could guess what has the blond prepared for him up his sleeve.

Before Sasori could even react, Deidara rapidly closed in their distance between the blink of an eye, and captured Sasori’s lips in a sappy smooch. Sasori froze, brown eyes widened to their maximum, all rationality flushed out of him. After three seconds, Deidara pulled away with a smirk while Sasori still has not regained his composure, then ran out the hall at his top speed, smirk already into a satisfied pleased grin.

It was only then Sasori’s senses returned to their owner. The puppeteer grabbed the thousand – paged hardback version of “Advanced Engineering Mathematics” by K. A. Stroud as a weapon, and tailed the escaping offending blond while muttering death threats under his breath.  
  
Deidara would be so dead from the textbook.


End file.
